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When a prop plane's propeller is spinning, it becomes almost invisible, right? But did you know, when looking at a plane's propeller through a digital camera lens while flying at 20,000 feet, the propeller appears to be almost standing still! Curious and curiouser!
Our prop plane from Joburg to Hoedspruit held 74 passengers and flew smooth as silk. We were late taking off and landing so our planned visit to the Hoedspruit Endangered Animal Center was delayed from a noon tour to the 2 pm tour. No worries. We visited a cute tourist-oriented shopping and relaxation center just outside Hoedspruit. We had a bit of lunch and played the game, Left, Right, Center with Mike, our driver until time to head to the endangered center. It was fun. We all learned this new game and I think Mike enjoyed it most of all. Tessa was the big winner, naturally!
The HEAC (endangered animal center) was great. We rode in a game drive safari vehicle and saw the various growth and maturation development levels of cheetah (nursery, elementary, junior high, high school and college). The center breeds and raises cheetahs for four years until they are ready to go into the wild. Cheetahs at this time are not on the endangered list but due to the reduction in native habitat they are on the vulnerable list.
Boy, did we see cheetah! As cubs, they are so cute, and they are totally open to domestication --- but they do grow to be large. Their friendly scratches that most cats deliver from time to time can be quite severe.
For me, the hit of the day was seeing King Cheetah, born King because of a recessive gene. These guys have a purely royal appearance with a nice short black mane running down the neck to the back. Their spots are very dark as well. Born in the wild, this is the kiss of death. The mother cheetah kills baby King cheetah because they do not look like her species.
In addition to the cheetah, we also saw wild dogs, daikon, lions and serval - cats with pointy ears that appear to cross each other. We also saw a huge mess of vultures, three varieties, at the vulture pit munching on putrid meat leftovers from the cats.
Delaying our visit to the HEAC meant we would miss the evening game drive at our lodge. Yes, we missed it but amazingly, we almost had our own private safari. On our drive to the lodge, with the expert eye of our driver, Mike, we found wart hogs, giraffes, a huge elephant, impala, lions, cape buffalo, wildebeest and zebra!!!! These guys were living wild in the open bush near Kruger National Park with no fences and no boundaries. We just happended to be driving through in the late afternoon and early evening hours when animals conduct their afternoon feeding. We are just lucky like that to have seen so many animals in such a short period of time!
Our lodge is perfect for bush life. It sits on the high bank of a river, normally full this time of year (we are at the end of rainy season and entering winter, the dry season) but it is almost dry. In this particular rainy season, the last significant rainfall this area has seen was the week between Christmas and New Year's Day. It's dry here and it's going to become more dry as winter or their dry season approaches. Our accommodation is a luxury tent. It even has a/c. What??? It has canvas walls, but wonderful bedding and hot and cold running water. There is a big garden bathtub in the bathroom, but for those of us who want to experience nature, the shower is outside. It is sheltered from view on three sides. The fourth side is quite wide and is completely open-air but nothing except passing animals like baboons or hippos can take a peek.
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